Sword Art Online Progressive 4

by Reki Kawahara

  At that moment, in the cave on the other side of the little room, Asuna saw me emerge and face the cloaked men, assuming that it was a bluff on my part, but I was half-serious. When Asuna abruptly emerged from her hiding spot and retrieved the rapier with brilliant aplomb, I thanked the god I assumed did not exist in this world.

  It was time that I admitted it. The reason, the motive that I had for fighting at the very edge of human progress, was no longer just a yearning for numerical strength and superiority. The words I’d aptly spoken on the stairs to the fifth floor echoed through my head.

  How long are you planning to work with me? Asuna had asked me. I’d responded as soon as the words popped into my head.

  Until you’re strong enough to not need me.

  To my surprise, that had turned out to be a very honest answer. I wanted the fencer, always no more than my temporary partner, to survive through the end of the game…and I wanted to do everything in my power to see that through. It was a true and ongoing sentiment.

  If she continued growing at her present rate, Asuna would undoubtedly surpass me in both knowledge and ability in the not-too-distant future. The moment when “she didn’t need me” would come one day. When it did, I could not hold her back. Unlike me, she had the talent to shine in a group. She would eventually grow to be one of the true best players in the game, capable of leading a major guild that would free us from this prison.

  My duty was to protect her until that time and give her all the information she needed to know.

  That was everything, and nothing more.

  Or so I told myself as I got up from the grass and heard a voice calling me from over my shoulder.

  “The bath is ready for you, Kirito!”

  I turned around and saw that same fencer climbing the little hill in the center of Shiyaya. When she reached the top of the hill next to me, she plopped down on the grass.

  Her dark red hooded cape—the hood wasn’t down now—and leather skirt were the usual, but there was a slight wetness effect remaining on her long chestnut-brown hair, shining with the reflection of the midday sun. In the moment, I was seized by a desire to touch it; I didn’t, of course. Instead, I looked in the direction of the large bathhouse and asked, “Where’s Argo?”

  “She said she was going back to Mananarena. But she said hi to you.”

  “Oh…”

  Just then, the third HP bar hanging from the left corner of my view disappeared without a sound. Argo had disengaged from the party as she left the village. The Rat hadn’t been taking part in the Elf War campaign quest, so we invited her into the village to deliver the appropriate information, and she spent almost all her time in the bath with Asuna.

  “That was a real long bath. What did you talk about?” I asked nonchalantly. For some reason, Asuna looked away in a panic briefly.

  “Y-you shouldn’t pry into girls’ conversations.”

  “Eh…? So you’re saying the Argo and the Asuna got together to have a little girl talk…?”

  “I just told you not to pry! Besides, what do you mean, ‘the’ Asuna?!”

  “S-sorry, sorry. I was just taken aback…”

  “And I’ll have you know that we were not engaging in ‘girl talk’!” She snorted, opening her window to check the time. “Oh, it’s already midday…If you’re going to bathe, you should be quick about it.”

  “Nah, I’ll do it next time. We’ve got to get moving on this…”

  I looked to the north, toward the labyrinth tower looming a mile or two away. Asuna followed my lead and nodded.

  “You’re right. But…do you think the ALS is serious about tackling the floor boss early on their own…?”

  “Hey, it was your intel, Asuna,” I pointed out.

  “I know, but…” she replied noncommittally.

  As I suspected, Asuna had fallen through the trapdoor in the Karluin catacombs, which made her unfortunately fortunate enough to overhear a massive secret that even Argo didn’t know. One of the two best guilds in the game, the Aincrad Liberation Squad, led by the spiky-haired Kibaou, was going to skip out on the expected year-end countdown tonight in Karluin to take on the floor boss by themselves.

  At this minute, the ALS and the other major guild, the Dragon Knights Brigade, would be staying at a village called Mananarena, not far from Shiyaya. The village was in the center of the floor, half a day’s travel from Karluin, but less than two hours if using the underground tunnel. So as I understood it, the guilds planned to return to Karluin by nightfall, preparing food and music, then throwing Aincrad’s first New Year’s party at nine o’clock.

  But if the ALS was heading from Mananarena straight to the labyrinth tower in the northeast, to challenge the boss and head to the sixth floor—and it was the result of the agitation of Morte’s mysterious PK gang, that was a development I couldn’t ignore.

  Asuna, Argo, and I spent much of the previous night discussing how to react to this plan. Ideally, the ALS would give up on their reckless plot and join the New Year’s party in Karluin as planned, but they weren’t the kind to take such well-meaning advice to heart. More likely, Kibaou would turn on us and demand, “Where’dja hear that info from?!”

  We could leak the ALS plans to the DKB on the sly as well, hoping they would also try the tower…but it would mean canceling the big party.

  The countdown party had been proposed and planned by the more relatively peaceful members of the DKB like Shivata and Hafner, together with the similarly cooperative officers of the ALS. If it was a success, the guilds would be on better terms in the future. That was what Morte and his cohorts were trying to prevent, so if the party never happened at all, their goal would be at least partially successful.

  I sighed, wondering what we ought to do, when I heard Asuna whisper, “If only Kizmel was with us…”

  Puzzled by this, I blinked and asked, “Uh…why?”

  With a completely straight face, the fencer suggested a rather alarming plan. “Isn’t it obvious? Together with Kizmel, we could beat the floor boss first. Then the ALS would have no reason to rush ahead of the others.”

  “…Uh…right…That is a good point,” I hesitantly agreed at first, then switched gears and shook my head violently. “A-actually, no, not a good point at all. Even with Kizmel, that would be insane.”

  Kizmel the dark elf knight had visited Shiyaya yesterday to our delight. But unfortunately—if you saw it that way—the fifth-floor chapter of the Elf War quest was quite brief, so after a few short quests and a battle against a Fallen Elf officer, Kizmel moved onward to the sixth floor.

  Thinking back on our fun but brief quest with her, I continued, “We were only just barely able to beat the hippocampus on the fourth floor with Kizmel, Viscount Yofilis, and an entire full raid party. And the fifth floor is a milestone floor, so we’ll have a tougher boss than usual…”

  “Oh…What kind of boss was it in the beta?”

  “It was a gigantic golem, the guardian of the ancient ruins. However, the area boss in the catacombs was completely different from the beta boss, so they could have totally changed the floor boss as well. We won’t know anything until we scout it out…”

  “Good point. Speaking of which,” Asuna wondered, staring pensively toward the tower, “the ALS haven’t done the boss quests, have they? And they’re going to attempt the floor boss on the first try without any of Argo’s strategy guides? Where are they getting the confidence to try this…?”

  Boss quests were a series of quests related to the boss of each floor. Doing them earned you hints about the boss’s category, strengths, and weaknesses. But because the quests were heavily story based, time-consuming, and offered poor rewards, the ALS and DKB preferred to wait for the info to get out—in other words, for Argo to put out the boss issue of her strategy guide.

  Asuna and I had been busy enough with the Elf War campaign that we hadn’t gotten around to the boss quests yet, so we couldn’t act too high-and-mighty about it, but Asuna was right that th
e ALS was being reckless. Even if an insider from the PK gang was inciting them on, we needed to figure out what sort of criteria was causing this heedless plan to be accepted by the group…

  “Hmm. Do we know anyone in the ALS who understands enough to share more information?” I wondered. Asuna looked pensive.

  “I don’t think so. Most of the current frontline group is made up of Diavel’s raid party from the first floor, right? Since he died in that fight, Lind took over and created the DKB. Then Kibaou resisted the hierarchical structure of Lind’s style and formed the ALS based around solidarity…Given that history, the DKB members will feel that they are the ‘original’ group, while the ALS feels like the underdog that has to seize the reins from the DKB.”

  “Aha…So it’s like majority and minority political parties,” I noted, impressed. But Asuna’s troubled expression didn’t fade.

  “It’s just that the difference in strength between them is minor. In that sense, the ALS is working really hard. The problem is that you and I are, if anything, members of the Diavel team. The ALS seems to think we’re both DKB leaning.”

  “Uh…what?! Who would believe we’re DKB leaning…?” I shook my head, gaping. “In fact, along those lines, wouldn’t Kibaou be considered part of Diavel’s team? He seemed to really look up to Diavel, in fact.”

  As I spoke, I recalled the scene of the very first strategy meeting we held in the town of Tolbana on the first floor. That had been December 4, so it wasn’t even a full month ago. Yet the image seemed so distant now.

  A blue-haired young man standing at the lip of a fountain. Silver armor gleaming in the setting sun, and a friendly smile.

  My name’s Diavel, and I like to think of myself as playing a knight!

  With that cheerful greeting, Diavel seized the hearts and minds of the players present. And when he met a heroic, fateful end against Illfang the Kobold Lord, boss of the first floor—no matter the circumstances behind the scenes—Diavel the knight became a sort of holy figure to the players of the front line.

  Asuna echoed this opinion by saying, “I think that’s why. Kibaou really respected Diavel…so he believes that by leading the DKB, Lind is trying to use Diavel’s image for his own purposes.”

  “Yeah, you could be right. Ever since the first meeting, Kibaou expressed his anger with the former beta testers. I’m sure he can’t stand the thought of a small percentage of players monopolizing the best resources like in other MMOs, now that SAO is a game of death. In that sense, you can see why he can’t hang with the DKB, given the stark differences in how they treat their officers and normal members…”

  “Uh-huh,” Asuna agreed, looking down at the brand-new boots she was wearing. They were magic boots she’d received as one of her rewards from Viscount Yofilis.

  They were items that everyone had the chance to earn if they made their way through the Elf War campaign, so it wasn’t truly a monopoly, but there was clearly a kind of conflict between their gradually growing layout of elite gear and Kibaou’s mantra of redistribution.

  I reached out unconsciously toward Asuna’s knee to break her gaze on the boots below. “It’s true that Kibaou’s assertion that we should share what we gain equally, whether information or items, has a kind of merit. Now that this game is deadly, the most valuable resource of all is player life, so it only makes sense to maximize our protection of it. But in an extreme situation like a boss fight, it’s impossible to treat your own life and others’ lives equally. First, you protect yourself; then the next closest player…That’s why I want you to put the most effort into keeping yourself safe, Asuna. Including equipping yourself with high-level armor.”

  “…Yeah.”

  She nodded timidly, then cleared her throat.

  “I get it. You don’t have to press so hard. I happen to like these boots; I’m not thinking of giving them to someone else.”

  “Okay,” I said, relieved. Then I noticed that through her socks, I was firmly gripping Asuna’s shapely knee.

  “Wuhoah!” I yelped, removing my hand at light speed and hiding it in my coat. “S-s-s-sorry! I wasn’t doing that to cop a feel or anything, it was your boots…”

  “What about my boots?”

  “I was trying to…touch your boots…”

  “That’s the same thing!”

  I withdrew my argument, properly scolded, and fortunately Asuna did not let that distract her from the topic at hand. “At any rate, from the ALS’s viewpoint, we are targets for correction. I doubt that any of them are just going to reveal sensitive guild information to us. Actually…wait a second…”

  She frowned, then glanced at me.

  “…It wasn’t just the DKB members who planned tonight’s countdown party, was it?”

  “I think so…Shivata and the DKB led the planning, but the goal was to bring the two guilds closer together, so a member of the ALS was going to cooperate, I think,” I said, recalling the instant message that Agil sent us four days earlier.

  Asuna thrust her face forward. “So maybe that person on the ALS side will talk to us? I mean, the big party they were planning could be ruined by this sneaky boss plan, right? It might be their guild, but they can’t be happy about that.”

  I was recalling the note about “inviting my partner” at the end of Agil’s message, so it was a second later that I finally processed what Asuna was saying. I smacked my knee.

  “Ah, good point…If their early boss plan was forced by the hard-line members, then the moderate party planner would have been overruled. They must have some private thoughts about that…but then…” I trailed off.

  “But then what?” Asuna asked, suspicious. I avoided meeting her gaze by pulling up strands of grass nearby. When I continued my thought, it was in a darker tone.

  “Unless I’m just thinking too hard about this…the party could have been just a part of the plan. If they proposed the New Year’s event to distract the DKB and keep them tied to the city, that would give them a better opportunity to jump ahead. If that’s the case, then we won’t learn anything from the planner on the ALS side. Instead, they’ll be suspicious, and it’ll make things worse…”

  “…”

  Asuna didn’t respond for a while. Her left hand began pulling grass next to mine, starting a little competition. Tiny plants like grass weren’t treated as separate items by the game. They disappeared as soon as you pulled them loose, but did not vanish from the ground, so you could keep pulling them indefinitely if you wanted.

  For most of a minute, we yanked and yanked on the blades of grass, until Asuna finally spoke.

  “…I don’t want to imagine that the ALS would go that far. The non-Morte player on the third floor of the catacombs was definitely a spy within the ALS. Even if he’s agitating the hard-line faction to give them an edge, there must be players in the guild that want to be on peaceful terms with the DKB.”

  Now it was my turn to fall silent.

  In all honesty, my “party planner is agent of sabotage” theory and Asuna’s “ALS moderate faction” theory could coexist. If the planner was a secret hard-liner, the plot could have all been happening behind the moderates’ backs.

  But no amount of thinking in this situation was going to bring us an answer. Ultimately, it came down to whether or not we believed in the good nature of SAO players.

  I knew I didn’t have the right to believe in that. On the day that SAO began, the moment that Kayaba’s welcoming tutorial ended, I was the first to race out of the Town of Beginnings. I couldn’t imagine a future in which ten thousand players banded together as one to defeat the game. I sought to make myself more powerful, so I could avoid the malice of some unseen fellow player.

  But Asuna was different. She didn’t pick up her sword and leave the safety of town to be stronger than others. After we ate black bread with cream in the backstreets of Tolbana, I asked her why she left the Town of Beginnings.

  So that…I can be myself. If I was going to just hide back in the first city an
d waste away, I’d rather be myself until the very last moment.

  Asuna was battling herself. She believed in the strength within her and was trying to prove its existence. That strength was radiating out of her now, shining upon me as I sat next to her.

  “…Let’s go ask,” I said, giving the grass a break. I sensed Asuna looking over at me. I glanced into those hazel-brown eyes, feeling the powerful light within them, and continued, “The ALS’s plan to jump the boss is too dangerous, and even if they succeed, it will create a huge rift between them and the DKB. If there’s a chance we can stop them, we should act, not sit here. And if he were able to see us now, I’m sure Diavel would scold us…”

  “…You’re right,” Asuna said, a faint smile on her lips. I thought I heard her say “thank you.” I stood up without reacting—not knowing how I should respond anyway—and clapped my hands.

  “In that case, let’s go back to Mananarena for lunch!”

  “Sure thing. But…how will we identify the member of the ALS that was responsible for planning the party?” Asuna asked as she got to her feet, brushing the backside of her leather skirt.

  I smirked.

  “We could ask Argo for help, but she’s probably tackling the boss quests about now…We’ll do it the orthodox way.”

  As befitting an elf village, Shiyaya was full of water and greenery. By contrast, Mananarena was a dusty place built in the remains of an ancient mine. Stores and homes lined the sides of a mortar-like depression that extended down into the earth, with the yawning mouth of a mine-shaft dungeon at the very bottom. In there were ores and fossils, as well as a rich assortment of relics, but for now, Asuna and I headed to the biggest restaurant in town.

  If we kept following the downward spiral path, we would eventually arrive at our destination, but we were in a hurry and used staircase shortcuts here and there. At about the middle of the descent, we came into view of a large building exuding lively music and pleasant smells.